Tolerance and intolerance: Children's and adolescents' judgments of dissenting beliefs, speech, persons, and conduct

Tolerant and intolerant judgments of different types of dissent were examin ed. One hundred sixty participants (aged 7,3, 10,4, 13,6, and 20,1) made ju dgments about dissenting beliefs, speech, practices, and people engaged in those practices. Across all ages, participants were more tolerant (1) of th e holding of dissenting beliefs than of their expression, (2) of the expres sion of beliefs than of the persons engaged in acts based on those beliefs, and (3) of the persons than of the acts. Tolerance of dissenting beliefs a nd speech increased with age. Although, at all ages, participants were into lerant of the practices, they were relatively more tolerant-of practices gr ounded in cultural contexts. Participants were more tolerant of people espo using dissenting information than dissenting values. We concluded that tole rance and intolerance coexist at all ages and hinge on what individuals are asked to tolerate and on the sense in which they are asked to tolerate it.